CKNW Editorial
for June 28, 2000

If, in this business, you think you have been wrong you should say so. I think I was wrong in saying that Glen Clark should not have been afforded protection against the lawsuit of Bob Ward. When I said so, I had only the newspaper accounts of the case ... I have now read the reasons for judgment of Mr Justice Owen-Flood.

The offending words used by Mr Clark in a media scrum related to criticms of the Pacificat Ferry project of Mr Ward, which criticisms have, for the most part, been proved correct. The judge found that as a fact and we all know that Mr Ward was right. What Mr Clark said was this ... "Mr Ward is a disgruntled bidder on this project who is constantly feeding misinformation on this issue."

I have no doubt that this was defamatory and for what it's worth think the judge was eminently correct in so finding. It's true that Mr Ward could well have been considered a disgruntled bidder ... he had pestered the Ferry Corporation to have his version of fast ferries approved. But disgruntled bidders have rights too and to have said that an eminent professional, Bob Ward, was "constantly feeding misinformation on this issue" was clearly a very serious defamation ... especially since the information Mr Ward was feeding was almost chapter and verse bang on.

Why then have I changed my mind as to whether or not the government, ie the taxpayer, should pay the legal costs of Mr Clark and the judgment against him? The answer is simple - Mr Clark in his response was echoing the advice he was given by senior officials of the Ferry Corporation. In other words Clark, as minister responsible, went to the senior people at the BC Ferry Corporation and asked for their comment on what Mr Ward was saying and he repeated in the media scrum the information the Ferry Corporation fed him.

This, to me, has the ring of truth because I was approached by the Ferry Corporation and told, in effect, that Ward was spreading disinformation, that he was unqualified and that he was a "kook", in those words. I believe that Mr Clark ought to have had another opinion. After all, Mr Ward, as a marine engineer was not just making generalizations about Pacificats he was making very specific allegations and it was no doubt negligent of Mr Clark not to have demanded a third opinion. But I don't believe that negligence was such that he should be deprived of protection by the government.

What I said last Monday about damage suits against politicians and the obligations of governments to those ministers I stand by. Where I now differ from what I said is found on page 18 of the trial judge's findings where he says this "I accept that the defendant (Clark) had acted reasonably in seeking guidance from his own staff and consultants, as well as BC Ferries officials and relied upon what they told him, namely that there was no foundation to any of the criticisms made by the plaintiff."

This puts the matter in quite a different light. It is still very true to say that this project was Mr Clark's and his alone ... it is eminently true to say that Clark brooked no criticism of the project and it is on authority no less than Auditor-General George Morfitt that the criticisms of Bob Ward and others, were well known to Mr Clark and the ferry Corporation in ample to tube the project. None of that changes. What does change is that it is quite clear from the judgment of Mr Justice Owen-Flood that the slander by Mr Clark was based upon what he thought was the case after consultation with his advisers.

This does not change the slander nor does it alter the damages. What it does say that Mr Clark, when making his statement, was doing so as a minister who had informed himself on the issue and based his remarks on that information.

I was therefore quite wrong to say that Clark should not have the protection of the government against the judgment and legal costs of this action.

What this does, of course, is raise the much wider issue. What about the people in the Ferry Corporation who were badmouthing Mr Ward such that the Minister would so defame him? What about the Ferry Corporation feeding me, for example, slanderous disinformation about Mr Bob Ward? It is there that the fault lies and it is there we must seek the answers. But that's for another day ... in today's editorial may be found the admission that I was in error on Monday and that Mr Clark, damned fool though he certainly was, on the issue raised by Mr Bob Ward acted on advice given him by the Corporation and he is entitled to protection.